


sweet dream nothings

by palepinklipstick



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7091536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palepinklipstick/pseuds/palepinklipstick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m here to rescue the prince in the tower.” She must have lost her mind. </p><p>Bruce and Selina and the worst blizzard in decades.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet dream nothings

Usually, Selina Kyle prides herself on her ability to keep a level head.  Bruce might be the one with the manners and the sense of justice and the education, but Selina is the voice of reason in a world of senseless chaos. But she’s always been a little weak for the boy with the sad eyes and the awkward mannerisms so when he sends her letters through the slot she’s hewn in her door, she reads them most carefully. Even when it hurts, even when she knows nothing will come of reading letters from Bruce Wayne.

She knows that he’s lonely. She reasons to herself that, he’s probably so attached to her because she was one of the first people to treat him like a normal boy. Ever since the incident at Arkham, a couple of years ago, he’s always found a way to keep in her life and in her thoughts. Through letters and little gifts and flowers and packages of food and clothes. She hates charity, but she has a feeling his gifts are less charity and more of some other sentiment she can’t quite put her finger on.

Today, he writes that he misses her. He often writes that he misses her. She misses him too, though she’d die rather than admit it. The thing is, Selina knows that, for Bruce, there are things that will always come before her and she would be willing to accept that but he is not. He says he never wants her to be put in danger because of him again and that is why he stays away.

But he still writes and, as practical as she is, as unsentimental and hardened and rational as she can be, she still has a soft spot for Bruce Wayne and she keeps all his letters in a battered box under her bed. She lies on her bed exhausted and sore and lonely but the slight smile that alights her face as she scans the letter is genuine.

It is, perhaps, at this point, that she loses her mind.

Without much planning or rationalizing or _thinking_ , Selina hoists herself off the bed, pulls on her worn leather jacket, adjusts her goggles against her unruly curls and heads out the door.

 

/

 

It is cold in the study

Bruce feels it acutely after his shower, his hair still damp, a towel around his neck and his night shirt across the room in the armoire. It will be another long night, though the television provides some level of comforting noise, murmuring softly in the background. The news anchor speaks of an impending storm, tracing the details on a map in the background. The large, sprawling house is mostly quiet; Alfred is already in bed. He hopes the blizzard doesn’t block the exits. He enjoys his morning runs and prefers them to any “shoveling training” Alfred would be inclined to engage him in.

He feels despondent, almost apathetic at the sight of the stacks of newspaper clippings, documents and audio files. His laptop is open, on a page discussing the brutal murders of some prostitutes in the South End and he is tired. He can’t remember the last time he was excited, driven to pursue the latest lead. It feels endless, it feels pointless.

 

“Well, this is a fun little party you’ve got going on here.”

 

It’s almost ridiculous how fierce his joy is at the sound of her voice; how instantly his heart starts to beat faster. He spins around and she is standing by the curtain as though it was the most natural thing in the word. As though she stood there every evening when, in reality, he hadn’t seen her in months, hadn’t allowed himself more than 10 minutes in her presence. He almost breaks down then, almost says, to hell with what Alfred said and what is good and right and honorable. He misses her and it takes every ounce of self-control he possesses to maintain the neutrality of his expression, to not let a smile brighten his face and to not run up to her and wrap his arms around her.

It would not be polite and she would be angry at him for it.

“Selina, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here. There’s a storm coming.”

She rolls her eyes at him, kicks off her boots as though she hadn’t heard a thing. She makes her way to the sofa where he falls asleep most nights, makes herself comfortable around his throw blankets and starts flipping through the channels on the television.

“I needed a hot shower before this damned blizzard makes my place unbearable.”

Selina can’t let him see the flush on her cheeks, or notice the way that she can’t look at him. The last time she’d had a real conversation with Bruce Wayne he had told her he loved her and that he couldn’t be with her which was a miserable thing to put her through but that’s life and Selina knows how to roll with the punches. However, when she had stood on the window sill and spotted his bare chest, the definition of muscle on his once scrawny arms, she almost lost courage. Almost fled from the sill and returned to her threadbare room where she would have pushed thoughts of Bruch Wayne out of her mind.

But Selina is a brave girl and so she carries on, endures the intensity of his gaze, tries to hide the trembling of her shoulders. _So what if he loves her, so what?_

“Are you alright?” his voice is concerned, he comes to sit next to her and she curses him for it. She doesn’t know if he’s teasing her, most likely he’s oblivious, but his proximity makes it difficult to breath.

“Just peachy,” she waves airily, leans back as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Her eyes never once leave the television. Some chick flick is playing, the male lead is too pretty for her liking. She’s never liked pretty boys. “I just got your last letter.”

“Oh.”

It is all he says but he is elated. He had been writing those letters for himself mostly. She never responded and he never expected her to. The fact that she read his letters, it is wonderful. He wishes that she would look at him

 

“Do you receive the other packages?” He tries to be casual about it and fails miserably, but he needs to know. If she’s eating properly, if she is warm this winter, if maybe she wears those rings and necklaces and dresses he sends her. Whether she wears them on dates with other men who can make her happy, whether they are to her taste, whether she knows how meticulously he selects those things because a day never goes by where he is not thinking of her. He does not know if she hears him. She barely acknowledges the question, keeps her eyes trained on the television.

The thing is, Selina understands. She knows it is not charity and she knows that he sends her those things because he’s in love with her. She does not want to accept them, they can’t play this game, but she can’t bear to reject them and break his heart in the process. So the boxes pile up and sometimes she sells them or gives them away but the things so clearly meant for her, she keeps and treasures.

“You need to stop sending me those,” she teases lightly, still not looking at him, still pretending like she’s unaffected, “the future Mrs. Wayne won’t appreciate you giving away her family jewels.”

It’s as much an answer as he was expecting. All the same, it hurts that she does not believe in him, “there will never be a future Mrs. Wayne.”

She hates the resolve in his voice. It seems so childish to her, so silly, so _blatantly untrue_. As though she is the only one he could ever fall in love with or ever want to be with. She hates how happy she feels when he tells her this, she hates how she still believes in him.

“As devastatingly enchanting as I am,” she jokes lightly, still not looking him in the eye, still tense around her shoulders, “you know I can never be the lady of Wayne Manor.”

She wishes he would stop looking at her, wishes he would find a damn shirt and put it on and she most certainly wishes he would move from the couch and stand at the opposite side of the room.

“You are.”

 _How does he do that?_ She wishes that she wasn’t so weak, wishes that that didn’t make her heart beat fast.

“And though I know I can’t ask it of you,” Bruce replies. His voice, when he speaks to her as of late, has been so low, so soft, “the offer only stands for you.”

 

She wants to yell at him now, wants him to come to his senses and stop with this shift in his feelings for her. Selina is not stupid, she knows it has always been there, but she never expected him to be so open and honest and diligent about these feelings.  She finally turns to look at him.

“I need to leave.”

Bruce starts, almost desperate, “You can’t, the storm has started.”

He’s right. When she turns to look out the window, the snow is falling fast and hard, visible under the light of the moon. Bruce stands up, turns to his desk. He can’t quite verbalize his relief that she will stay awhile.

“I can show you to a guest room…”

He continues to talk logistics, offering to take her back home in the morning, once the snow removal team comes. Selina, for her part, is frustrated to be in this mess, frustrated to be in the same space as Bruce Wayne when she’s feeling so weak and impractical and reckless.

“I don’t need a guest room,” she interrupts him, settles into the sofa cushions, “I’m fine here, thanks.”

She is sick to death of the intensity of his gaze.  The emotion in the air too tangible and heavy and _suffocating_.

“Stop looking at me like that, Bruce!” She explodes, her eyes flashing. He goes to apologize but she will not stand for it, “And stop treating me like I’m someone important or special or precious or whatever, while pushing me away. I hate it! If you don’t want me in your life, cut me out of your life! But don’t keep it half way like this!”

She can’t stand the stricken look in his eye, the way his shoulders fall, the way he recoils.

“When was the last time you slept?” she continues shouting, frustrated by the bags under his eyes and stacks of papers on his desk and the way he’s still sleeping on couches. “You are coming to bed now!”

They both pause. There is a beat before Selina, reaches out her hand, her voice shaking just slightly.

“You are coming to bed with me now, let’s go.”

Bruce, for his part, feels as though he’s lost all ability to think functional thoughts or to form functional sentences. A part of him is so euphoric, he is willing to just let her lead him wherever she likes and to hell with everyone and everything else. Another part is screaming for him to get a grip, of course she doesn’t mean it that way you bloody fool, of course you should say no because that would be taking advantage of her.

“Selina,” his voice is hoarse, “ Selina, I could never take advantage of you.”

She snorts, grabs his hand and leads him out to the hallway, to the nearest bedroom she can remember. “We are going to _sleep_ because you look like one of those damned zombies. And if you want to sneak in a kiss or a cuddle _whatever_ , but just know I would **never** let you take advantage of me.”

When they reach the bedroom she stayed in last, he hands her a change of clothes. He still turns away when she changes because _of course he does_.

She hops into the bed, pats the space next to her. He hesitates again and she will not have any of that.

“Come on!”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. When the lights go off, when he cautiously, gently puts a hand around her waist she doesn’t protest. When he presses a soft kiss to the back of her neck, whispers sweet nothings into her hair, she merely holds his hand tighter.

Bruce sleeps like a baby. Selina remains awake for much longer.

 

 

 

 


End file.
